Maybe that was a good enough reason to ask. We were friends. Friends talked about that sort of thing. What if she’d left for the summer and he missed her? Or they’d broken up recently and he was trying to hide the fact that he was sad about it? Although I doubted he’d be able to hide that from me. I knew him too well, and he didn’t seem sad.
At this point, I was starting to drive myself crazy, so I just blurted out the question. “Are you still dating that girl you were with at Christmas?”
He stopped, his pool cue resting on the edge of the table, and looked at me with lifted eyebrows. “No. We broke up a while ago.”
“Oh. That sucks. I’m sorry.”
He watched me for a second, then turned his attention back to the game. Took his shot and missed. “It’s okay, it wasn’t a big deal. Sometimes things just don’t work out.”
“Yeah.” I walked around the table, looking for a good shot. Not that I knew much about what I was looking for.
“What about you?” He leaned his hip against the table. “Did you and your boyfriend decide to take a break for the summer?”
“No, he and I are better as friends.” I lined up my pool cue and took a shot. The ball actually went in. “And I’m not really looking for anything serious right now.”
“Why not? Think you’re too young?”
I considered his question as I lined up another shot. “No, it’s not that. I’m just focused on other things. I need to finish college, and then…”
“And then?”
I hit the cue ball but the three bounced off the side, slowing to a stop in the middle of the table. “And then, I don’t really know. I’m not sure what I want to do with my life yet.”
“Really? No ideas?”
“I have ideas, I guess. But I’m open to the possibilities.”
The corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Good.”
Suddenly I wondered if we were talking about career choices, or something else.
“My mom would like it if I had a better idea of what I want to do with my life.”
He laughed softly. “You’re going to be successful at whatever you set your mind to. I know you, Gracie Bear. That’s how you operate. You’re too stubborn to fail.”
The warmth of his approval spread through me. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear that. “Thanks, Asher.”
He smiled at me, and my gaze locked with his. With those deep, dark brown eyes. His lips twitched, puckering his dimples, and the fluttering in my stomach was back—with a vengeance.
The door opened, the sound breaking my trance. Cory Wilcox and Joel Decker walked in. Asher glanced over and his eyes narrowed. We’d gone to school with both of them; they’d graduated with Asher’s class. As far as I knew, Cory worked construction and Joel had gone to work for his dad’s auto body shop.
At the sight of them, I didn’t just narrow my eyes. I downright glared.
They were friends with the Havens.
“Easy, tiger,” Asher said. “That death glare of yours is liable to hurt someone.”
“I don’t have a death glare.”
“No? I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of it.”
I wasn’t so petty that I disliked half my town simply because of some old feud. There were plenty of people on the Haven side who were perfectly decent. Several of my teachers growing up had been Havens. There was an unspoken truce when it came to teachers, police officers, firefighters, and healthcare workers. We weren’t backwards hicks who’d deny someone medical attention or a proper education just because they were on the other side.
And most of the time, the feud was as silly as it was old. It was played out with harmless pranks, competition for prizes at town festivals, and a whole lot of trash-talking.
But Cory and Joel? Guys like them made it into something worse. Used it as an excuse to be assholes and start trouble.
“Why do you think they’re here?” I asked.
“Who knows. Maybe a dare.” He chalked the end of his cue. “Just ignore them. They’ll get bored and leave.”
Hank stood behind the bar and crossed his arms. Cory and Joel both glanced in our direction, then walked over to the bar. Asher took his shot and the balls clacked.
“You’re up, Gracie Bear.”
I lined up my shot, trying to ignore the intruders. “Do you think Hank’ll serve them?”
“He will if they show some manners. But I doubt they will, so probably not.”
My cue hit and the balls thwacked together, but I didn’t come close to sinking any of them.
“Are you trying to hustle me, or are you still this bad?” Asher asked.
“Shut up, Bailey.”
He grinned. Although his posture was relaxed, I saw his eyes flick to Cory and Joel again, like he was casually keeping track of them. He put the five in the corner pocket, then missed his next shot.
“Your turn.”
I leaned over the table to take my turn, but Cory and Joel headed our direction. I straightened, wrapping both my hands around the cue.
Asher didn’t look concerned, but I was.
Scuffles didn’t break out over the feud very often, but it could happen. If these guys were here to pick a fight, I knew Asher could handle it, even if it was two on one. He’d been a district champion wrestler, and now he competed in jiujitsu tournaments around the state. I wasn’t worried he’d get hurt.
I was worried because Asher could not get in trouble with the law again. Not if he was going to get his juvenile records sealed. And he had to, or his dreams of being a firefighter would be smashed to pieces. Even an arrest with no charges could ruin everything for him.
When he was seventeen, Asher had gotten in a fight with Josiah Haven outside the Zany Zebra on a Friday night. I hadn’t been there to see it, but a bunch of kids had recorded it on their phones. By the time someone had broken it up, Asher’s nose had been bloodied. And he’d broken Josiah’s arm.
He’d been arrested and charged with assault. A felony. Fortunately, he hadn’t been charged as an adult. The judge had ordered him to complete a counseling program and community service hours instead of sending him to jail, so it hadn’t interfered with graduating high school on time. But now he had to wait five years from the time of his arrest to have the records sealed. Until then, he was technically a felon with a criminal record.
I also happened to know that Asher had gotten in that fight to protect his brother, Evan.
My heart sank as Cory and Joel stopped next to our pool table.
“Sup, Bailey.”
Asher’s forearms flexed as he wrapped his hands around his cue. “You guys need something, or you just in here to prove you have the balls for it?”
“Just seeing what the deal is,” Joel said. “Heard this place has good onion rings.”
“It does.”
“Too bad the owner’s a dick.”
Asher turned his attention back to the table, effectively dismissing them.
There was a pause, the only sound the music from the old-fashioned jukebox. Hank still stood behind the bar, watching. Cory and Joel seemed to realize they weren’t going to get the reaction they were looking for—whatever that was— from Asher.
Cory nodded toward the door. “Let’s get out of this shithole.”